


Name a Date

by DWEmma



Category: You Me & Them (TV 2013)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:48:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26692459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DWEmma/pseuds/DWEmma
Summary: While trying to escape another nightmare evening with Kay, Ed meets Lauren in a pub...
Relationships: Ed Walker/Lauren Grey
Comments: 3
Kudos: 4





	1. Ed

Ed was running late. He knew he was going to be running late when he let Kay set the time for the date, but he figured it made more sense to let her cry about his being late (and therefore clearly not loving her, nevermind that he had never actually told her that he loved her), rather than have to hear her over the phone cry about his not wanting her to set the time of their meeting or some such rot, only to have her cry out of relief when he showed up when he asked for them to meet in the first place. Path of least resistance. 

She did look rather good in a skirt, though. That always had been his weakness. Managed to tolerate a lot of utter battiness for the sake of a woman’s legs. That’s how he’d managed to stay married to Lydia for that long. 

He had to find a way out of this Kay situation before she managed to strong-arm him into marrying her. He was not looking for another marriage, he was sure of that. Especially not to another woman who never listened to him or considered him in how she spun their world together. 

He reached the pub and could see her through the window. Blast it all, was she crying again? Ed found himself walking right on past the bar, almost as if his legs were controlling him as much as he usually let women control him. Kay, crying inside, could keep crying for all he cared. He would pay for it later. He always paid for everything later, in suffering and in credit card bills, but he just couldn’t do it. 

By the time he slowed down, he found himself in front of another pub. Not exactly shocking, but quite welcome. He had been looking forward to that drink. Might as well take it in silence somewhere that Kay was not.


	2. Lauren

“Here, probably. Well, not in this pub, though I might have been. It’s been too long since I’ve traveled for more than a quick minibreak.”

Someone will have to help you fix that.” 

“All right, lightning round. January of 2005.”

“New Zealand. Hang gliding. That one cost me, so I lived here the rest of the year working under the table as a bartender.”

“March of 2009.” 

“Riding the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway in India.”

“February 2012?”

“Greece.” 

“June 2013.” 

She was at first confused, but then grinned at him. “Talking to a very handsome man over drinks in a pub.”

“Very handsome?”

“Yeah. He left right before you came in.”  
“Did he?”

“Yeah,” she confirmed, and then let herself get distracted by his eyes again. 

“Can I buy you a drink?” he asked, a little too smoothly, but she decided not to care. 

“I had a bit of a never-ending glass of wine before you arrived, but it seems to have run out now that I’ve focused my attentions elsewhere.” 

“Let me buy you another one,” he offered, starting to signal the bartender. 

“No,” she said, a little more abruptly than she meant to. She felt him back off, his energy withdrawing. She reached out and put her hand on his hand. “I’m a bit drunk already, and something tells me I want to remember tonight. I’ll take a raincheck on your buying me a drink, though.”


	3. Ed

She wasn’t his normal type. Not as magazine perfect, not bottle blond, for that matter, and that gap between her teeth ought to be off putting. But it was quite fetching, actually. He was certain that she’d be absolutely stunning if he took her somewhere fancy, somewhere that would cause her to put the effort in, but he was actually relieved to be talking to the sort of woman who wore no makeup, a ponytail, jeans, and a t-shirt at the local pub. If he’d wanted perfectly made up, he wouldn’t have kept on walking when he got to Kay. 

She was young, though. It’s not that he cared, since it wasn’t like he was one of those blokes who never aged, black haired and wrinkle free at 65, not that he was north of 60, at least not yet. But he had never quite figured out the best way to ask a woman, even a young woman, her age, just to make sure she was within that appropriate bubble of more than half his age. Half his age plus seven, wasn’t that what people said? Kay wasn’t that. But maybe that was the problem with Kay. Maybe once she was half his age plus seven she wouldn’t be so...much. Though honestly Lydia was only five years his junior and was even more...much.

“It’s been a while since I’ve traveled, honestly,” he found himself saying. “I think I said that before, but I did travel when I was young. I’m probably twice your age, though.” 

“You’re sixty-six?” Lauren asked, giving him the answer she knew he was looking for. 

“God no. I’m fifty-eight.” 

“So…” she paused, doing the maths. “I’m half your age plus four.”

“I’ve been told it’s meant to be seven.”

“Oh no,” Lauren said, her mouth gaping open in mock horror. “That’s not within the allowable limit, is it. It’s meant to be seven. So…” And he saw her retreat into her mind again to do the maths. He could honestly watch her do that all day. “Gosh, I suppose I should give you my number and you can call me in six years when the maths work out.” 

“Did you just do those sums in your head?” 

“Didn’t you?”

“No. I mean, I would have gotten there, I’m sure, but I wasn’t there yet.” 

“You’ll have to be quicker to keep up with me, Ed. I’m a spry young one.”

“I think you’d find that I’d have absolutely no trouble keeping up with you.” He grinned at her slyly, and she blushed a little. “Well maybe it might be a problem with all the hang gliding and zip lining. When do you take off on your travels again?”

“Oh. I don’t. I’ve decided, well, it’s time to grow up a bit. Also I keep running out of money. I’m a student again. Studying to be a veterinary nurse.”

“You can take care of all the sheep in the Faroe Islands.”

“And the puffins. Though not actually the puffins. I’m only training in domesticated animals. Mostly cats and dogs and rabbits, honestly. I like it. It’s different. But it feels, well, meaningful. What is it that you do, apart from not traveling as much as you used to and not buying me drinks?”

“Oh, I own a few garages. It’s not, well, meaningful, but I like it.” And I like you, he thought, but didn’t say, because it was horribly cheesy and sentimental, and he’d just met the woman. “Can I take you to dinner tomorrow night?” he asked, wanting both an answer as to whether or not this was just a night’s flirtation to her and enticed by the idea of seeing her when she’d made herself up a bit. 

“What, you’re not planning on taking me home with you tonight?” grinning at him cheekily. 

He paused at his, trying to suss out if she was putting him on or actually requesting a seduction. And then, of course, there was the matter of Kay. He’d silenced his phone earlier, but he was certain she’d blown it up with texts, as he’d heard his grandson say. He should probably end things with her before starting something new…

He noticed Lauren’s broad seductive smile tremble at the corner, and before could doubt herself any further, he took his hand and tilted her chin up with his knuckles so they could be eye to eye. She gasped a little, and he was lost. 

“I want you to know that I’m not going to...that I wouldn’t just…” It was all he could do to not lean down and... 

“Hit it and quit it?” she asked, with that grin again. 

He chuckled. 

“So that’s why dinner tomorrow night…”

“Sounds lovely, Ed. I accept your invitation. I’ll even let you pick the cuisine. But allow me to propose a counter offer.” 

“A counter offer?”

“Yes. A business man such as yourself is familiar with the concept?”

“I am, yes.”

“Counter offer is that you pick up your mobile and make us a reservation for tomorrow night, to prove to me you’re serious about dinner.” 

“Of course I’m serious…” he began, but was silenced when she reached up to his mouth and put her finger across his lips, in the universal shush sign. He shushed, but brushed her finger with a few soft kisses, just because he could. 

“And then you take me back to yours and shag me senseless.” 

“How is that a counter offer?”

“Ah, see, you want to show me that you’re the good sort of man, the sort that doesn’t shag a woman and then never call her again, right?”

“Yes I do.”

“Which is a challenging thing to prove to a woman who desperately wants to leave a bar with you the first night you meet her and do unspeakable things to your body.”

“What sort of unspeakable things?” 

“You can’t speak them, Ed. That’s why they’re unspeakable.” 

If she said his name that like one more time, he was semi-seriously considering dragging her into the Ladies’...

But she went on, and he wasn’t actually the sort to do that, not any more, well, not recently…

“And while this woman desperately wants to leave the bar with you and get on very intimate terms, there’s no way to prove to her that you will call her the next day, so you want to avoid that problem by taking me out to dinner and shagging me tomorrow night.”

“I suppose I do.” 

“Ah, but that just transfers that worry another day. All I’ve gotten out of it is a nice meal…It will be a nice meal, won’t it, not just PizzaExpress or something…” 

“It’ll be a nice meal.” 

“Right. But see, my plan avoids all that. It’s not that you don’t want to shag me tonight, it’s that you want me to know that you’re not just in this for the shagging. The best way to prove that to me is to guarantee that date after the shag. So we can enjoy each other’s company without all the wondering of will we or won’t we?

“Are either of us wondering if we won’t? Because right now, all I’m hearing is that either we will tonight or tomorrow…”

“You could still muck this thing up, Ed. I’m a complicated woman.” 

If she could be as ridiculously forward with him as she’d been, he decided that he could push a bit more, so he slid off his barstool to get a bit closer to her, leaned toward her ear, his lips just barely not touching the edge of the inner shell, and intoned, “A complicated woman who wants my cock inside of her.” And then he waited, breathing into her ear, hearing his own heartbeat in his ears, half from arousal, and half from fear of being slapped. 

“So you’re accepting my compromise?” she said, sliding off her barstool so their bodies were side by side. 

“Let me pay my tab,” he said, leaving a soft peck on her cheekbone suggesting better things to come. 

He walked down the length of the bar toward where the bartender stood, and as he paid the bill, he glanced down at his phone long enough to see that he’d been sent 23 texted by Kay. Wait, now 24. 

As his credit card was being run, he typed out a text in response. “This isn’t working out. I think we should see other people,” he wrote, and hit send, and then turned off his phone for the night. Well, that was sorted. 

He signed the slip and then smiled at Lauren, as he put his arm gently to her lower back, just above the curve of her bum, polite but enticing, and walked her out of the pub and toward his car. And hoped to any gods that Lauren had met in her travels that Kay wouldn’t still be in the pub he’d parked near to.


End file.
